• This Week's Torah Portion

My colleague Rabbi Steven Philp recently introduced me to a quote by theologian Arthur A. Cohen: “[The Jew], more than any other [person], lives on the recollection of first things and anticipation of the last.” Rabbi Philp followed that up with, “We are a people of memory and vision, always looking to our past and to our future…By understanding where we’ve been and where we want to go, we can figure out what to do right now.”

In Greek, Deuteronomy literally means “second law,” or “repeated law.” In Hebrew, the book is called “D’varim” which literally means “words.” As Moses tries to prepare the Israelites for their eventual arrival in the Promised Land, these words take on a particular urgency. Unlike the other books of the Torah, Moses’s d’varim are offered in the first person. Biblical scholar Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber notes that, “whereas Exodus and Numbers are presented as ‘objective’ third person descriptions, Deuteronomy is presented as Moses’s speech, where he shares his perspective and recollection.”

As with much of Jewish tradition, Moses speaks to the past, present, and future in the very same moment. In Deuteronomy, we encounter a Moses preparing for an unknown future-for himself and the Israelites. He is caught between history and possibility and seems to walk between the two. The book is filled with contradictions that thrill Biblical scholars, but also point to the poignancy of the moment. Moses is retelling the stories as he experienced them, and in so doing, is both learning and teaching new lessons for the future.

As an introduction, Parashat D’varim reads like a travelogue — or a particularly boring slideshow of someone’s family trip. Moses recounts, in detail, the various stages of the Israelites’ journey from Sinai to this moment, leaving out some of the most interesting events. He does not start the story in Egypt, and chooses to redact key moments, such as the Golden Calf, the building of the Tabernacle, the deaths of his brother and sister, in favor of complaints about challenges to his leadership. Perhaps most interesting is how Moses’s retelling differs from the events as described in the Torah itself. Take this moment in verses 20-26:

“Then all of you came to me and said, ‘Let us send agents ahead to reconnoiter the land for us and bring back word on the route we shall follow and the cities we shall come to.’ I approved of the plan, and so I selected from among you twelve participants, one representative from each tribe…and they gave us this report: ‘It is a good land that our God is giving to us.’ Yet you refused to go up and flouted the command of your God.”

​Now, in the context of a rant about petulant behavior and insubordination on the part of the Israelites, nothing about this anecdote seems out of place. Moses tells the people they have arrived at the place and the moment they have been preparing for, and the people get cold feet. They (reasonably) suggest that Moses send scouts. The scouts come back with glowing reports–and the Israelites balk, sulking in their tents.

Only…. that’s not what happened, at least according to Numbers. In Numbers, God commands that scouts be sent; the panic only occurs when 10 out of the 12 scouts come back with dire reports. In this telling, the Israelite rebellion is one of a stiff-necked, petulant people behaving like cranky teenagers. In Numbers, sending spies feels more like a reasonable response to fear and past trauma. And while most Biblical scholars use examples such as these to argue for the existence of multiple biblical authors and editors, I was moved by the writings of Dr. Farber who humanizes this moment, writing:

“Each story is different when retold by Moses decades later. Preparing for his death and digesting the bitter pill of partial failure and…punishment, Moses’s version of events reflects his own take. At this stage, Moses is anything but dispassionate and objective.”

This glimpse into Moses’ frailty and humanity is, I think, a gift to us as readers. It is a reminder that even history is not written in stone (pun intended) and that even shared experiences have diverse outcomes and memories. We are, Moses reminds us, only the masters of our memories; we can try to shape the past and the future, but somewhere along the way, we may have to cede control.

Moments like these serve to set up the final book of Torah as one that embraces contradiction and wrestles with the challenges of human emotion. Deuteronomy suggests that we may disagree about where we came from, where we are going, and how we are going to get there. This is not a bug; it’s a feature. As Farber concludes: “We are a religion that loves incongruity and debate, and our Torah study thrives on the productive tension inherent in multivocality and conflicting perspectives.”